Parents who had baby via surrogate say child is legally not theirs in UK
A gay couple are fighting to be recognised as their daughter's legal parents after being informed they don't have parental rights in the UK.
Adam Frisby and Jamie Corbett used an egg donor and a separate American surrogate named Krista to welcome their baby girl, Leven, back in January.
Sharing a snap of the newborn baby on Instagram at the time, they penned: "The entire birth was the most surreal, emotional experience ever. A story for another day, but for now we just wanted to update you all and let you know that she’s here and she’s incredible.
"And @sincerely_krista … wow. We already had the utmost respect for women, but this took it to a whole new level. What she has done - carrying and protecting our daughter until she could meet her dads is something we will be forever grateful for."
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In the months that followed, however, the British couple were dealt a gut-wrenching blow, being told they weren't able to enrol their daughter in the British medical system, and that still, their surrogate remains the child's legal parent, despite not being her biological mother.
Under current law, until Frisby and Corbett have filed a 200-page parental order and had it approved - a process which can take up to 12 months - they won't be recognised as Leven's fathers.
Speaking to Sky News this week, Corbett explained that the receptionist at their local surgery had demanded to know who Leven's parents were when they attempted to register the child.
"So I went in and said, 'Well, we're a surrogate family, she has two fathers'," he began. "And they said to us, 'Well, we can't put that on our systems in the NHS, so we need to know who the mother is'."
Corbett continued: "I explained, again, the situation: she has an egg donor, and we went back and forth for a while with them and in the end the doctor's surgery were actually very good, and she was very understanding."
Despite the practical difficulties in registering their daughter, Frisby went on to describe the issue as 'more mental and emotional'.
"I think when we had the call with our lawyer to be told this is what you can’t do when Leven is here," he recalled. "You [Jamie] came off particularly emotional, and I did as well.
"This isn’t how it should be. This is our daughter; we’ve planned her for many, many years, and actually we’ve got all these issues that we may face."
Frisby continued: "Touch wood, you know, if ever Leven needed medical attention in hospital, we’d have to go and get consent from the High Court or from our surrogate, and it’s just not how it should be."
Corbett then confessed: "When we go into the doctor's, and we call them, they ask who’s the biological father, because we have to have consent.
"But because of this grey area with the parental order, even though one of us is legally the biological father for Leven, we’re still not classed as her parents in the UK because our surrogate in the US is."
As the process drags on, the couple will have to endure regular visits from social workers - something Frisby says 'feels wrong'.
"I always say this, but a surrogate child isn't an accidental child," he said. "They are planned for many years, and so wanted, so to have social workers assess that we're fit enough to be parents when we already are just feels very off."
Frisby and Corbett recently launched a petition - which currently sits at 113,090 signatures - to have the law on surrogate parenting classifications altered, which was debated in Parliament yesterday.
The pair claimed, however, that the conversation had by MPs dissolved into a discussion about 'wealthy men exploiting women'.
Taking to Instagram afterwards, the pair jointly wrote: "We really believed today might move something forward. It didn't.
"We gave it everything."
Rhianna Benson